KHL fights, NHL Vegas and Heritage Classic jerseys (Puck Daddy Countdown)

(Ed. Note: The column formerly known as the Puck Daddy Power Rankings. Ryan Lambert takes a look at some of the biggest issues and stories in the NHL, and counts them down.)

5. The KHL

First it’s coaches throwing down in a preseason game. Then it’s some guy named Damir Ryspayev trying to beat up literally everyone on an expansion team.

I understand it’s not always fair to apply our own societal norms to that of other nations, where things are different in ways we likely cannot understand. But good lord, at least when guys fight in NHL preseason games it’s because they’re AHL plugs who think doing so will get them a call-up in January or something. (By the way, fighting should be banned in preseason hockey for exactly this reason.)

What on earth is so damn important in a preseason game that you’re like, “Well, I gotta go fight this coach now,” or whatever? What type of unhinged person one-punches an unsuspecting opponent then systematically goes to everyone else on the ice, and then the bench, and tries to fight them as well?

Like, okay, the KHL is weird. Kevin Dallman is its best defenseman ever. There was a whole team that basically tried to fight every opponent all game long. (Shockingly, neither of the brawls highlighted here involved good ol’ Vityaz.) I get it. But I don’t know if I’m ever going to truly understand what goes on in that league. It’s really very bizarre.

The good news is that all the people who have expressed disgust that the NHL is moving away from fighting now definitively have a new major league to watch. The bad news is Russian streams aren’t always reliable, and Barys Astana probably starts its home games at like 3 a.m.

4. The whole Las Vegas hockey team name thing

Who would have guessed this would all go so badly?

The thing I love is that they were all set to use “Knights,” and would have totally been all set to do it in the U.S., but for the fact that they couldn’t have done it in Canada because the London Knights own “Knights” and that somehow restricted the new NHL team from using it.

Not being a copyright lawyer, let alone a Canadian copyright lawyer, I’m not quite sure why that’s an issue. However, if it’s such a big one that an NHL team was like, “Well, guess we gotta go back to the drawing board here,” I have a lot of questions about the Ottawa Rough Riders and the Saskatchewan Roughriders being allowed to co-exist for decades. If the space was all that was needed for the differentiation, surely affixing the words “Las Vegas, like from a whole different country” in front of “Knights” would have sufficed? Seems very nonsensical.

And please, no one tell the Kitchener Rangers, Charlottetown Islanders, or Lethbridge Hurricanes about this. The NHL is going through a lot right now.

There was also a recent fan vote of 16 potential names (shout out to the White Tigers) and the winner of that poll was the “Outlaws.” But here’s the thing: That was both an Arena Football team, and an XFL team (shout out to He Hate Me).

The team’s new beat writer thinks the answer could be this:

But again, Knights. Maybe that’s still a thing even with a color in front of it?

One thing we know for sure: The Vegas team is already stepping in it pretty hard. Can’t nail down a name because a junior team has it instead, and its color scheme is the oh-so-exciting black, silver, and gold. Why not just go red-and-black like half the other teams in this league and get it over with?

We’re talking about Vegas, man. Black with neon! Not hard!

3. Heritage Classic jerseys

Not that I was expecting to see anything earth-shattering for a Winnipeg/Edmonton game, but these jerseys were duds.

Edmonton, well, they’re just the team’s existing third jerseys. And to be fair, they’ve basically had one jersey design for the entirety of their existence (not even 40 years). They already re-adopted the throwback-y quality of the blue and orange as their full-time shirt a few years ago. The only other option was to do what Calgary did when it hosted the Heritage Classic a few years ago: Adopt the look of a minor pro team that used to be in Edmonton. How about something in the style of these Edmonton Eskimos kits from the 1920s? Yeah, that would have been cool.

And okay, yeah, it’s not like the Jets were going to pick a Thrashers-inspired jersey — even if the powder blue would have been sick — because they still act like Mark Scheifele was the first pick in organization history. But picking the jersey of a franchise that left town and also happens to still exist? Jeeeeeeeeeeeez is that weak. Maybe you go something inspired by the Winnipeg Warriors (a minor pro team from the ’50s and ’60s), even if you would have had to scale back the whole “racist logo” thing. Or even the initial WHA Jets jersey, which doesn’t look exactly like the one the Coyotes-née-Jets wore?

I dunno. I usually really like throwback jerseys like this, but these were both underwhelming as hell.

2. Vegas hiring

On the flip side of the whole, “They can’t nail down a name,” issue, the Las Vegas team is at least making a series of good hires that people seem to really like. I’m very, very excited for the expansion draft, and given the people they’re putting in place right now, it seems like this team is very intent on not even coming close to screwing it up.

Bad news for all those teams hoping George McPhee and Co. will relieve them of their bad contracts. Doesn’t look like that’s going to happen unless you really sweeten the pot, like any other NHL team would have.

1. World Junior Evaluation Camp being on TV

Man, there really hasn’t been too much of a shortage of high(ish)-level hockey this offseason. And that World Cup of Hockey schedule that came out last week looks pretty great too.

(Not ranked this week: The dog days.

I think this is what they put in the dictionary next to “slow news week.” Thank god that Russian guy went ballistic.)

Ryan Lambert is a Puck Daddy columnist. His email is here and his Twitter is here.

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